


Bisect

by jaegermighty



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, intimacy issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3791305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegermighty/pseuds/jaegermighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I like nice people," Cisco says.</p><p>"Well you like me, so that's debatable," Caitlin replies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bisect

Caitlin is not, and has never been, a person who falls in love easily; when she fell for Ronnie, her mother likened it to a lightning strike, which in retrospect is one of those awful ironies she wishes she'd never noticed. But it was true - Ronnie was a lightning strike. He swept in and out her life quickly, powerfully, and left a smoking crater behind that Caitlin will probably never be able to heal completely. Not to imply that it was Ronnie's fault, but still - she appreciates the symmetry, there.

She never dated much. She never saw the appeal when she was young; while all her friends were starting to explore and experiment, Caitlin never cared enough to join them. In college, there was a boy she might have loved, but they were both so busy with their studies that they never really found the time. And there were dates, here and there, set ups from her colleagues, men she'd go out with because at her mother's urging, casual friends and acquaintances that made her feel pressured into saying yes - but none of them lasted, none of them stuck. None of them counted, really. It was just Ronnie.

Cisco on the other hand has been in love six times, and she knows this because he's told her, extensively: Melinda in high school, who chose his brother instead. Rachael in college, who he drove away because he was still messed up about Melinda. Isabel, the singer who moved to Florida, and Eli, who didn't get along with his family. Jordan, who he still won't talk about, and finally Shakira, his longest lasting relationship, who Caitlin still thinks shouldn't count but he's pretty stubborn about always including her on the list anyway.

For a guy just barely into his mid-twenties, it's an impressive list - impressive, yet unsurprising. Cisco loves so easily, it pours out of him with every breath, every movement, every grin. He loves music, and candy, and tv shows, and comic books. Food and mystery novels and action movies and science and really good beer, baseball stats and cars and Mythbuster reruns on the Discovery Channel. Corny jokes, and having conversations with strangers. Chocolate ice cream with oreo bits on top. Helping people. 

Love has never come easily for Caitlin. But love is how Cisco lives his life - maybe in that context, then, it makes sense that he ends up being the one. Caitlin appreciates the symmetry there, too.

 

 

"So, hypothetical question," Cisco says, and Caitlin braces herself. This is usually how he tells her that something really expensive is broken. "If you were a cute girl that I see every morning at Jitters, and I was...still me, would you be more likely to say yes to a date if I had my hair up or down?"

It takes Caitlin a few seconds to untangle that sentence, and when she gets there, she feels a little blindsided. "Um." Cisco gathers his hair back with one hand and grins, to demonstrate, apparently, while he waits. "You never wear it up."

"I do too! For like, interviews and stuff." He lets his hair fall again and shakes it out a little, for good measure. "Asking someone out is sort of like an interview. Only way more uncomfortable."

There's a weird little worm growing in Caitlin's chest, squirming its way up her ribcage. She breathes through it, like she breathes through everything. "Wear it down. You can tie it back if you take her someplace nice, maybe, but when you ask her, you should just be yourself."

Cisco smiles at her, seemingly pleased by her answer. "You don't know if she'll say yes."

"She'll say yes," Caitlin responds, and turns her focus back to her equations. She's lost her place, though.

"Bette didn't say yes." Caitlin doesn't look up from her laptop, but she can feel the rush of air as Cisco whizzes by her in his chair. "Neither did that girl at the Chili Peppers concert."

"That girl was wasted," Caitlin says with a snort. "And so were you, by the way."

"I was _buzzed,_ " Cisco replies.

"I had to drive you home."

"And then you left me in your car!" Cisco accuses. "Just like, parked in the garage! I could've frozen to death."

"You wouldn't wake up!" Caitlin swivels around to glare at him, but of course, he's grinning ear to ear. "I _tried_ to carry you but you were too heavy and besides, I covered you with a blanket, so quit complaining."

"Okay," Cisco relents, "that was nice."

"You're damn right."

"At least I didn't puke in your car," Cisco says. 

"Small blessings." Caitlin shoots her computer one last look, then gives up on the idea of trying to work. She's too deep in it, now. "So when are you going to do it?"

"Puke in your car?" 

Caitlin rolls her eyes. "Ask out Jitters Girl."

"Oh." Cisco makes a face. "To...morr...ow?"

"Are you sure about that?" 

"Yes?" Off her expression, he firms his jaw and nods. "Yes."

"What's she like?" Caitlin almost winces at the sound of her own voice, a little harsh, even for her. "I mean - this isn't another Natalie situation, is it?"

"Natalie was perfectly nice, you just didn't like her because she made fun of your break room chore wheel idea."

"It wasn't - !" Caitlin shuts up, abruptly, glaring at the ceiling as Cisco chortles at her. Not unkindly, but still. "Okay, you know my feelings on the chore wheel incident, let's not go there again - what I'm asking is...is she nice? Or an evil dragon lady? Because Natalie was an evil dragon lady."

"What makes you think I'd go for evil dragon ladies?" Cisco asks, which is not exactly answering Caitlin's question. "I like nice people."

"Well, you like me, so that's debatable," Caitlin points out, before she can stop herself. The worm twists viciously, right beneath her heart.

Cisco blinks at her for a second, and then laughs again. Caitlin watches him warily, hands clenched in her lap, wanting to add something like _not that you like me romantically or anything, just to clarify._ It'd just make it worse, though. 

"You're nicer than you think you are, Cait," he says kindly, after a moment, and Caitlin swallows hard.

"Right, well," she says, clearing her throat. Cisco shrugs at her, unrepentant for the effects of his compliment, as always. Caitlin doesn't know how to respond, also as always. "You didn't answer my question."

"She's nice," Cisco says. This is the other kindness he shows her; he never dwells on something that's making her uncomfortable. "Her name is Belinda, I think she's a student or something. She's always there on her laptop. We chat sometimes."

"Chatting or flirting?" Caitlin asks, pressing on the bruise.

"It's like, a combination. Chirting." Cisco frowns. "Flatting?"

"I don't think you can go back, once you add in flirting," Caitlin says. "It's a solution, not a mixture."

"Okay, flirting, then."

"And she's nice?"

"Yeah Mom, she's nice," Cisco replies, rolling his eyes. Caitlin shoots him a dirty look. "You wanna do a background check on her first, before I ask?"

"Don't tempt me," Caitlin warns. The sad thing is, she's actually thought about it before, for Cisco's dates. He's just far too trusting, honestly - and they're all still a little shaken from the Lisa Snart incident. So it's not like she doesn't have good reason, is her point. "Text me her last name once you find out."

"No way," Cisco says with a laugh, tossing the paper clip he's been toying with in her direction. Caitlin doesn't flinch, watching it fall to the ground a few feet short of her chair. 

"I'm just being cautious."

"Cautious in your language is paranoid in mine," Cisco says, waving his hand, like he's physically closing the subject. "Anyway, I don't think cyber stalking before I've even asked her out is likely to win me any points."

"She'll say yes," Caitlin tells him again, and turns back to her computer. Her heart is pounding pretty hard. She ignores it.

 

 

She's not sure when it started, or if it even had an actual start that could be identified, even if she were better at recognizing such things, when they happen. What she does know is: last month, Barry was sick with something, some kind of mutated strain of bacteria that slowed his healing abilities significantly, and they were all up around the clock, trying to figure out a way to help him. Caitlin remembers sitting cross legged on the floor of the lab surrounded by books and medical journals and print out after print out of test results, trying not to listen to Iris whispering to Barry, unconscious on the gurney, and - well, it was hard not to listen. She couldn't help but listen, Iris standing there pleading just a few feet away, _I love you, don't do this to me again, I love you_ , over and over, and she remembers it getting to be too much, remembers looking over at Cisco and thinking, _God, I don't know what I'd do. I really don't._

Losing Ronnie had done a lot of bad things to Caitlin, but it also made her stronger: she wakes up most days with the knowledge that whatever happens, she'll live through it, at least. But now she thinks that maybe she shouldn't have been so quick to that confidence, that maybe that fear of hypothetical loss only gets worse once it's already happened to you, because...well, because Cisco buys her orange Tic Tacs from the convenience store, her favorite, every time he stops for gas. He sings along to the radio, and makes this cute little frown when he's doing math in his head. He wraps his arms around her shoulders when they hug, and presses his palm against her back when they walk through crowds. There's a gap in his teeth. He hates French fries. He listens to her when she talks, and he never, ever makes fun of her sore spots.

Ronnie was the lightning strike, the bolt of fire that changed her life, but Cisco - he's her partner. They face the fire side by side, and change together. And it's not that one way is any better than the other, but Caitlin is getting better at defining herself now, at articulating what she wants out of her life, and the people she wants to share it with, and...well, she thinks she gets it, now.

She may not be skilled in falling in love, but she gets there, eventually. If you give her enough time.

 

 

There's nothing going on between Iris and Barry, or at least that's what they're telling most people, who receive this news with various levels of skepticism. Caitlin is one of the chosen few to be let in on the real truth: they're in love, of course, but they're not speaking at the moment. The way Iris describes it, she's as confused as Caitlin is.

"It's like...okay, when we were growing up? We never fought," Iris explains, curled up in the corner of Caitlin's couch. She looks very small against the cushions, which feels incredibly wrong to Caitlin, who has always viewed Iris with a vague sort of stunned awe - Iris West, force of nature. The center of the universe. "We had little arguments here and there, but never anything big. And I always thought it was because we were good at talking it out, and listening to each other, but...now I'm like - what if that's not it? What if he was just too afraid to let himself get angry at me?"

"I'm sure that's not true," Caitlin says, and refills Iris' wine glass, unable to come up with anything better. "Barry's like that with everybody. He'll get in a little fight, and then talk it out before it gets big."

"I know, but it's not just about that, specifically," Iris insists. "It's the principle of the thing. All this time I thought I knew him, and...I don't." She looks stricken. "I mean, I do _know_ him. But not the way I thought I did, and turns out he didn't know me that way either, he just _thought_ he did, because if he _really_ knew me he wouldn't have lied and…" she trails off into a glum silence. "It's a silly thing to be upset about, isn't it?"

"No," Caitlin says firmly. "Absolutely not." Iris smiles wanly in acknowledgment. "Are you still angry? About the lying?"

"Sort of. I mean yeah, I am, but that's not the main thing. It's just scary, I guess," Iris says, staring blankly at her wine, "to realize that the way you define yourself is so connected to another person - another person who you maybe can't count on the way you thought you could. To think that you didn't even know it, either, for so long…" she shakes her head. "I sound like an episode of Dawson's Creek right now."

"That was a television show, right?" Caitlin asks. Iris blinks at her, and then laughs in surprise. "I, er...wasn't allowed to watch much television, growing up."

"Probably a good thing, in the long run," Iris says, still laughing. "Yeah, it's a TV show. A soap opera, more like."

"Right, Katie Holmes." Caitlin remembers it now. Her roommate in grad school had had the DVDs.

Iris smiles. "Right!"

Caitlin smiles back, pleased at having elicited such a thing from her. "Well, I'm no expert or anything," she says, "but I think...that we feel things for a reason, you know. No emotion we ever have is inherently _silly_ , if it's honest."

Iris nods thoughtfully. "Yeah."

"I know what you mean, at any rate," Caitlin says, thinking of Ronnie, of long weekends in an empty apartment, trying to remember what her life was like, what her _personality_ had been like even, before she'd met him. She toys with her own wine glass, swirling the liquid around in a gentle circle. "It's...yeah. I know what you mean."

Iris sighs and scooches a little closer, so their shoulders are touching. "Aren't we a pair."

Caitlin smiles down at her lap. She's never been a pair with a girlfriend before. It feels nice. "Yup."

"At least tell me _you_ have good news. How'd it go with Cisco?"

Caitlin sighs heavily. "It didn't." She sees Iris grimace in sympathy, clearly already aware where this is going. "He has a big date. I didn't want to ruin it."

"Oh, Caitlin." 

"It's fine," Caitlin says quickly, and drains her wine. "I don't even know if he...you know. And he seems to like her." 

Iris reaches over for the bottle, refilling Caitlin's glass in silent, reciprocal support. 

"What's the point of this boy stuff again?" Caitlin asks.

"Who knows," Iris replies dejectedly. "We should just stop talking about it and get drunk."

"Only if we agree not to cry on each other later."

"Well," Iris says, sounding rueful, "let's not bet the farm on that or anything."

 

 

Cisco texts her at some point, a single word: _izquierdo_. She reads it around one o'clock in the morning, while Iris is in the kitchen, singing loudly along to the Dawson's Creek theme song, blasting from the TV. Caitlin quickly reaches out and pauses it as soon as it's over, so she doesn't miss any of the actual episode.

 _I cant google_ , she sends back, which will not make sense in the morning. Cisco sends back an entire line of question marks, and then: _belinda's last name_

"Belinda Izquierdo," Caitlin says, out loud. 

She tries to type something along the lines of _I hope you're having fun please don't marry her_ but all she manages is: _I hior y_ , which will also not make sense in the morning. 

_are you drunk?_ Cisco sends, with a smug little laughing emoji. _right it's iris night. have fun and drink water_

"You're not _texting_ are you?" Iris calls, poking her head out through the doorway. "I heard a ringtone!"

"I'm not," Caitlin says, and carefully picks out a thumbs up emoji to send back. "I swear!" Well - she is. Only a little. 

_lol thanks,_ is all Cisco sends back. Caitlin groans and tosses the phone onto the coffee table. Well, he probably didn't go home with her, at least, if he's texting Caitlin this late. 

"Belinda Izqui _erdo_ ," Caitlin says again. Belinda Izquierdo, who's on a date with Cisco. She probably looks like Shakira.

"What?" Iris calls.

"Nothing," Caitlin replies. God, she needs to get a grip.

 

 

Iris gives her a ride to the lab the next morning, and a pair of sunglasses to borrow. 

"No - please," she says, when Caitlin tries to hand them back before she gets out of the car, "there's still a lot of sun ahead of you today. Hell, you can keep them. I have like a billion pairs, it's no big deal."

Caitlin slides them back on, and adjusts her hair clip, capturing a few chunks that have fallen out. "I don't look too walk of shame-y, do I?"

Iris, who is stylishly pulling off a walk of shame-y look herself, shrugs. "Sometimes," she says, "you just gotta embrace it, Cait."

"That's very wise," Caitlin tells her, and Iris laughs, like she thinks Caitlin is joking. 

"God," she says, tilting her head up to the ceiling of the car. Caitlin smiles, a little unsurely. Iris nods her head once, like she's finishing a silent prayer, then looks over at Caitlin with a brilliant, genuine smile. "Listen - thanks for hanging out last night. If you hadn't called I probably would've sunk into another ice cream sad movie coma."

"Me too," Caitlin replies. "Well - I'm lactose intolerant, so it would've been sorbet, probably. But sad movies - definitely."

Iris laughs again - she does that a lot, in response to things Caitlin says. Caitlin doesn't mind, though - it's a kind laugh. She knows Iris isn't making fun of her. "Well - anytime, okay? Seriously. I always have wine and Netflix and a couch, whenever you need it. And I could always use the company," she finishes, a little ruefully. 

"Alright," Caitlin says, nodding. It comes out a little jerky, like it always does, and she's sure the smile on her face looks stiff, even though she means it. Iris never seems to notice, though. 

"Good luck today," she says, squeezing Caitlin's arm quickly, as she's climbing out of the car, "and call me if you wanna talk! I'm still running down that source for the CCU article, so I'll be out and about most of the day." 

"You too," Caitlin offers, waving as Iris drives off, and walks inside with the vague notion that if she'd had a friend like Iris a lot earlier, she'd probably would have made it through a lot more heartbreak with a lot less trouble.

Cisco's already there and working, of course; she isn't lucky enough for today to be a day that he sleeps in. He looks up the second she walks in, from some piece of tech that would probably be more recognizable, if it weren't disassembled into a pile of machine guts all over the work table. "Heyyyy," he says. 

Caitlin sighs. "Don't start."

"I was just gonna ask if she made you sleep in the garage," Cisco says, and laughs out loud when she shoots him a dirty look. "That's it, that's my one. You gotta give me one."

"One and only," Caitlin says, grumbling her way into her chair and unloading her purse and briefcase. There's a bottle of aspirin next to her keyboard and she eyes it suspiciously, shooting a look over at Cisco, who gives her a look, a silent _you say one word about liver disease and I'm going for the fire alarm._ She sighs and picks it up. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Cisco goes back to the motherboard he's reworking, but his concentration is still on her, Caitlin can tell. "So - how is she?"

Caitlin glances around furtively, as if Barry is lurking somewhere, waiting to eavesdrop. He doesn't have superhearing - but he might as well, considering how good he's getting at popping up right in the middle of sensitive conversations. "She's alright." Caitlin shrugs. "You know. Still pretty angry, I think."

Cisco pulls out the little frown he has, whenever this particular subject comes up - he feels, for whatever reason, an obligation to defend Barry and Joe, which hasn't exactly won him points with Iris. Caitlin knows he doesn't like it - having to defend decisions that he didn't make, and only halfheartedly agreed with, as well as not being able to earn the friendship of somebody he respects as a result, but...well, it was an even split of a fight, when Iris found out. Caitlin went one way, and he went the other. She's not angry at Cisco or anything, but...sometimes she just wishes he were a little _less_ loyal. "You two had fun though, right? You cheered her up a little?" 

"I certainly hope so." Iris usually seems like she's in a better mood, after they spend time together. Caitlin's been pulling out all her best "please be my friend" moves - stopping by the paper with coffee, frequent compliments designed to bolster Iris' self-confidence (but carefully constructed not to seem overly romantic - Caitlin learned that lesson very well from a particularly homophobic classmate in twelfth grade), active listening skills, taking interest in Iris' hobbies, and so on and so forth. She's even thought about keeping a record, of her progress, but after some thought, she agrees with Cisco that that's probably a little creepy. "I never know if she's humoring me or not."

"Of course she's not humoring you," Cisco says, tossing his head a little, like he's shooing away her insecurities. "You're a good friend, Cait, I'm sure you're helping."

Caitlin ponders that while she dry-swallows her aspirin, trying to wrap her head around the thought. She has such trouble with new people, honestly, and Iris is still new enough to her that the idea that she's good company is still very strange. "Maybe." She blinks at the side of Cisco's head, noticing absently that he's wearing a plain t-shirt today, for some reason. Caitlin didn't even know he owned a t-shirt without a logo on it, honestly. "How did your date go?"

"Good." Cisco looks up and grins. "It's a cautious good. Not-getting-hopes-up good, but we're having drinks this weekend."

"Drinks," Caitlin echoes, grimacing. Cisco's grin widens. "Well - drinks are good. For you. Not me, currently. But for you and Belinda."

"Did you run her name?" Cisco asks.

"No," Caitlin lies.

"It's okay if you did, that's why I sent it to you."

"I Googled her," Caitlin offers. "But I did nothing that a normal person without access to police databases could not accomplish."

Cisco still looks skeptical, but his smile doesn't waver. He is the only person Caitlin knows that can express a full range of emotion without ever losing the authenticity of his smile. "Well, that's good, because I may have thought about it some more and maybe came to the conclusion that you had a point, about being cautious."

"Of course I did," Caitlin says. "I always have a point."

Cisco rolls his eyes at her. "I'm just saying!" he points at her with his soldering gun, "I don't wanna know anything unless it's confirmation that she's shady. _Solid_ confirmation. Okay?"

"Okay," Caitlin says.

"Okay," Cisco replies. "Also, heads up."

"What?" Caitlin says, and then shrieks out loud when Barry appears in a gust of light and wind, blowing her scarf straight up into her open mouth.

"Hey guys," Barry says cheerfully, doing a double take at Caitlin. "Geez, sorry Cait, I didn't know you were here yet."

Caitlin bats his hand away and spits out her scarf, glaring at Cisco. "How do you _do_ that?"

"The proximity alarm flashed," Cisco replies. "Hey, Barry."

"Morning," Barry replies, still staring at Caitlin. She shoots him a weird look, unsettled by the intensity. "Sorry. It's just - are those Iris' sunglasses?"

"...dude," Cisco says heavily. 

"What?" Barry asks, blankly. Caitlin sighs and goes for more aspirin.

 

 

Belinda Izquierdo was born in a small town in Kansas, moved to Metropolis for college, and most recently came to Central City for a job at the same paper Iris works at, only that fell through after some sort of fight with one of the editors. Now she's living with her aunt and working on a masters degree in journalism at CCU, and it's very likely that she will return to Metropolis when she's finished with her thesis, if the conversations she's been having on Facebook are any reliable indication.

She has curly black hair, and wears glasses. She likes gold jewelry, and the Foo Fighters, and chai tea lattes. She and Cisco went to a Italian restaurant, where they ordered crespolini with spinach and ricotta, and shrimp linguine, and she let him have the last piece of garlic bread, and she spilled wine on his shirt because she's quite clumsy, apparently, but Cisco didn't mind. They talked about music most of the night. She used to play the guitar, but she drifted away from it after moving away from her brother, who works as a music teacher.

Most of her friends call her "Izzy," but Cisco will probably shorten it to "Iz," like he shortens most people's names, like he will sometimes call Caitlin "Kay," when he's tipsy or really tired. It's like he can't be bothered with the remaining syllable, or even the 't' required to say "Cait," which - okay, it's not like she minds, "Cait" was sort of Ronnie's thing and she likes "Kay," it's a nice nickname, but she's not about to take it as more than it is, or anything. Cisco does it with everybody.

There is nothing in Belinda Izquierdo's life that indicates that she is evil, so Caitlin deletes her browser history and shuts her laptop and goes to bed before this gets anymore ridiculous. She and Cisco would make a good couple, probably. It wouldn't last long. They'd break up after a few months, because of Cisco's secrets, or a future in Metropolis. Cisco's list would expand to one more name: Melinda, Rachael, Isabel, Eli, Jordan, Shakira, and Izzy.

It occurs to Caitlin that perhaps it's not that she wishes he were less loyal - maybe she just wants him to be more loyal to _her._ The list wouldn't even bother her, she realizes, if it ended with her own name.

Identifying the problem doesn't make it any easier to swallow. Caitlin doesn't sleep very well that night. Not that that's unusual. 

 

 

She has coffee with Clarissa Stein every other Saturday. It was actually Barry's idea - one of his clumsy efforts to help. He can be so heavy handed sometimes, but Caitlin does appreciate it nonetheless. 

But she's very easy to talk to, easier than Cisco sometimes, even. It's hardly a surprise; after being married to a man like Martin Stein for over twenty years, Caitlin's particular brand of stilted conversation and accidental rudeness can't be too hard to handle.

"Cisco," Clarissa says, as she tips methodical spoonfuls of sugar into her cup, "yes, I remember him. With the hair, and the jokes. He seemed like a very bright young man."

Caitlin sometimes feels very old around Barry and Cisco. Clarissa has a way of reminding her how ridiculous that is. "Yes, that's him."

"So you're seeing each other?" Clarissa smiles distantly, tapping one fingernail against the back of her hand. "I can understand that."

Now what does _that_ mean, she can _understand_ it, Caitlin thinks, faintly alarmed. "No, we're not - he doesn't know. It's...just me."

"Oh, so you feel guilty, then."

"I suppose." Caitlin hasn't given it much thought, beyond a few bemused ideas about what Ronnie would say, if he knew it was Cisco she was contemplating moving on with. He'd probably approve, in a faintly condescending way. He was never the jealous type, but he could be rather patronizing, when he was uncomfortable. "Ronnie and I...well, I think it's different for us, than it is for you and Martin."

"Well of course," Clarissa replies. "You and Ronnie are so young. Martin and I - we've grown into each other. Like you see sometimes, two trees that are planted too close together?" Caitlin blinks at her, bemused. Clarissa does this often - absurd similes. On their last coffee date, she'd compared Caitlin's new hairstyle to Medusa's, which was actually much more flattering than it sounded, at first. "You know, how their branches sort of fuse together? And if you try to cut them apart, it doesn't go so well."

Caitlin's heart aches for her, sometimes. Lately, it's been aching more for Clarissa than it has been for herself, quite honestly. "Yes. Husband and wife trees."

"Is that what they're called? How charming." Clarissa smiles. "Well, my point is - we're too old and stubborn to move on. Nobody would have us, I would think. But you and Ronnie - you'll both survive. You both have long lives ahead of you to live."

The unspoken, unanswered question there is what _kind_ of life Ronnie has now, tied to Martin as he is, and trapped in the bowels of the American government. The question of what exactly they'd both traded away to Eiling, to keep them all safe. But they've had enough of those sad conversations. This one is about something else. "It's not...guilt, exactly. I mean it is, a little, but…" Caitlin shrugs helplessly, and Clarissa nods, kindly. "I had such concrete ideas about what our life would be together. And so did he - we knew exactly what we wanted. I could see it all so clearly, laid out in front of me." 

"Martin and I were the same," Clarissa says. "More and more I think...there's a reason it happened to us, you know."

Caitlin returns her smile, as genuinely as she can. She's been thinking that too, since the day she first met Martin Stein. They were much more similar than either of them thought - though she'd be willing to bet that they've figured that out, by now, wherever they are. "It's just...difficult for me to let that go. Not Ronnie, exactly, but...the stability he gave me."

"Your Cisco isn't stable?"

"Not the way I'm using the word, no," Caitlin says fondly. Cisco is many things, could be many things, for Caitlin, but any life that they would build together would be very, very different than the one she'd been working towards with Ronnie. He'd rather jump off a building than move to the suburbs, for example, she thinks wryly. And she knows that he'd hate that Kia Sorento Ronnie had been thinking of buying. "It's all hypothetical anyway; I don't even know if he feels the same."

"The fact that you're taking this as seriously as you are tells me that you at least have an idea that he might," Clarissa replies gently.

Caitlin's heartworm gives a little wiggle. "Yes, well." Her hand shakes a bit, as she sets down her coffee cup. "I guess I just don't know what I should do."

"Listen darling," Clarissa says, reaching out to carefully pat Caitlin's wrist. It's the kind of gesture Caitlin's mother would make - cautious, but warm. "There's no sage advice that I can give you - life is so difficult, and confusing. Anyone who thinks they can sum it up on a throw pillow is deluded, I say."

"A throw pillow?"

"They still do that, don't they?" Clarissa shrugs, uncaring. "Anyway - I've never wasted much time on trying to figure out what's the right or best decision, what's the point in that? I'll tell you this, Caitlin, when you're old and wrinkly and thinking about your life, how _healthy_ you were isn't going to matter all that much to you."

Caitlin gapes at her for a second. "You're not wrinkly," is what she finally settles on.

"Thank you." Clarissa pats Caitlin's wrist one more time before pulling back. "Look, whatever decision you make will be the right one, as long as you're the one making it. Whatever doubts or fears you have will fade, especially if you're in love."

"I think that would probably fit on a throw pillow," Caitlin says, after a long moment. "If you summarized it just a bit."

"Don't even," Clarissa replies, waving one hand. "Anyway, do you feel better with that? I hope I helped."

Caitlin considers the question for another moment. "Yes, I think so."

"You do make an old woman feel useful," Clarissa says, smiling widely. "Now, let's gossip. Tell me more about Cisco."

"Well," Caitlin starts, amused, "he's about five years younger than me."

"Oh, good job," Clarissa says, in approval. 

 

 

On Tuesday, Barry stops a man named Jacob Harlowe from blowing up Central City Police Plaza; they'd thought he was a metahuman, what with his ability to build complex machinery in a matter of hours with no training, but turns out he just had one locked up in his basement. Her name is Nadine, and she really, really regrets going out to dinner with him.

"Thank you, I mean - wow," she says, shaking their hands twice each and smiling nervously every time anybody looks at her, "I'm really - he's not getting out, right? I mean, he won't come after me, or - "

"He's not getting out," Cisco tells her, at the same time that Caitlin says, "if he does, we'll get to him first." 

Barry blinks at them both, and Nadine smiles, a little more genuinely this time. " _Thank you_ ," she says again. It's a good day. 

The next morning, Wednesday, Caitlin and Cisco meet for coffee before work. Cisco gets there first, and is waiting for her when she arrives with a soy hazelnut latte in the largest size they have - so large that Caitlin's positive it'll be stone cold by the time she gets to the bottom of it. Caitlin picks it up and holds it next to his head for comparison.

"Shut up," Cisco says, laughing a little and and angling his head away. "You could use some more sugar in your diet."

"I wasn't complaining." She likes hazelnut. He'd even remembered to ask them to leave off the whipped cream, and has given her two sleeves, just how she likes. Cisco himself is drinking black coffee, like always, which is one of those things about him that probably surprises people who don't know him as well as Caitlin does. "What do I owe you?"

Cisco rolls his eyes and ignores her. He looks exhausted; his hair is curling a little from the humidity and pulled back in a messy bun, and he's wearing one of those sweaters he pulls out when he's sick, soft and grey and extra long sleeves with thumbholes. He hasn't even put in his contacts yet - he probably will before they get to the lab, but for now he's just got his backup glasses on, which are old and scuffed up and always serve to make him look a little bit rougher around the edges, somehow, like he's not quite put together. Like he...just rolled out of bed. Caitlin tries not to stare.

"So," he says, "Nadine texted me early this morning. She made it down to Coast City alright."

"She texted you?" Caitlin winces at the jealous twist to her voice, and Cisco frowns at her. She clears her throat. "I mean - I didn't know you got her number."

"She's going to help me out with a few things." He perks up a little. "Can you imagine, having that kind of superpower? How much work I could get done?" He drifts off for a second, dreamy. "Just think of all the cool shit I could come up with, Cait."

"I'd never be able to get you out of the lab," Caitlin muses. _There but for the grace of dark matter_ , she thinks. 

"Yeah, well, I'm just saying, it's dope. That's the one I'd want, for sure." Cisco shakes himself a little, visibly coming back down to earth. "So she wanted to help, and I've been having a lot of trouble with that pressure regulator, so she's gonna take a look at my specs and see what she can do. Among other things."

"I thought she could only replicate things from looking at a blueprint of some kind," Caitlin says, "like, isn't the problem with the regulator that you haven't found the flaw in the actual design yet? So even if she builds it quickly, it'll still have the same flaws as your prototype - "

"She is an actual scientist Cait," Cisco interrupts. "She wanted to _help_ with the thing, not just build it."

Caitlin pauses, slightly taken aback. That was a little snappy, for Cisco. "Okay."

"Sorry. That was - sorry." Cisco grimaces. "I'm a little tired."

"Maybe you need the large more than I do then," Caitlin says, reaching out and nudging his knee with the tip of her shoe, a wordless signal of forgiveness. "What's wrong? Are you still having nightmares about Dante?"

"Yeah." Cisco shrugs emphatically, with his shoulders and hands, like _what can you do?_ "We've been talking more though. Turns out all I needed to do to get along with my brother was have a near-death experience with him. If I'd known that five years ago I would've tried to roll our dad's Buick or something."

 _No, what you needed to get along was for Dante to get over himself,_ Caitlin thinks, but doesn't say. It's possible her view of the situation is a little biased. "The more you talk, the better it'll get."

Cisco acknowledges this with a weary looking nod, leaning back a little in his chair and rubbing at his jaw. Caitlin has an absurd vision of sliding over onto the seat with him, squeezing into the armchair and wrapping herself around him like a blanket. It's absurd because she can't do it - it's absurd because she never would. Not in public, even if she had permission. But she wants to, anyway. "Dr. Wells is back today."

She knows. "Did you get his text this morning? About the conference?"

Cisco nods. "I'm not sure what else he expected," he says, "considering...everything."

"I'm sure it was difficult for him regardless," Caitlin says, "to be rejected like that." The words feel strange in her mouth; the conversation feels strange. A few weeks ago it would've been an emotional thing for them to discuss, they would've plotted ways to cheer Wells up, bought him a latte to go, because their coffee machine at the lab is mediocre, to say the least. Now Cisco looks even more exhausted, and the look on his face is troubled, and Caitlin can't think of anything else to say about it. 

They haven't talked about it out loud. If they do that, it makes it real, and Caitlin's not sure either of them are ready for it to be real, yet. 

"Yeah," Cisco says belatedly, and sits forward, suddenly. "We should probably get going."

"Yes, probably." Caitlin hasn't finished her coffee yet, but she can take it with her. It'll take her most of the morning to get through it anyway. She directs her gaze down at her coffee, and hopes she sounds casual enough as she asks, "oh, I forgot to ask you yesterday - how did drinks go, with Belinda?"

He shrugs. "Fine." He smiles, small but genuine, as he gathers up his empty cup and slings his laptop bag over one shoulder. "She's really nice. We had fun." 

"Oh good, I'm glad," she replies, and sort of means it.

They walk out together, and Cisco holds the door open for her, touching her back briefly as she brushes past. Caitlin thinks about it for a long time, afterward.

 

 

Caitlin leaves the lab early to meet Iris, who's been texting her all day to vent about what a nightmare work's been lately. She's glad for the excuse, and she's doubly glad that Cisco goes home when she does, as well. She doesn't like leaving him there alone anymore.

They're in some kind of holding pattern, when it comes to this whole thing. Iris' anger about being lied to is completely justified, and Caitlin knows she has culpability in it, and she can only be grateful that Iris isn't treating her with the same cold shoulder as she's giving to Barry and Joe. The question of Mason's death is an issue as well - they've talked about it without talking about it, agreed without words to be friends anyway, push it off to the side until it gets in the way. Maybe that's why everything's been so strange lately, Caitlin muses. They've all got their secrets, and everyone is just watching, holding their breath, waiting to see who'll be the first one to flinch. 

Iris has her come to this wine bar that they've never tried before, and is waiting for Caitlin with an open bottle and a determined, almost manic look on her face. "Okay," she says, scooting over to let Caitlin into the booth, even snagging Caitlin's purse for her and slipping it next to hers, on the ledge behind them. She seems jittery, a weird energy to her movements. "Here, drink this first. It's zinfandel. The whole thing, before I start."

"Are we planning a bank robbery?" Caitlin asks, but sips at the glass Iris slides her way anyway. 

"No. I mean, not unless you want to." Iris smiles beatifically, gesturing at Caitlin impatiently to keep drinking. Caitlin frowns and drains the wineglass as quickly as is wise, considering she hasn't eaten yet. "Okay, you good? Sufficiently loosened up?" Caitlin nods warily, unsure whether to laugh or not. "Great, so. I have an idea. I think I should help you seduce Cisco."

Caitlin is honestly very glad she did finish the wine first, before that. "Um. What?"

"I know what you're thinking!" Iris holds up her hands, like she's waving down a cab, or something. Waving down Caitlin's brain. "I know, like - 'what does she know, she's had exactly one failed two-month relationship and a weird non-thing with her best friend, why is she the seduction expert' - but seriously, Cait, I mean - you don't know, because we haven't been friends that long, but _I_ am an _expert_ wingman." She grins proudly. "Just ask Barry. Every date he had in high school was because of me."

Caitlin blinks at her for a few seconds and then gropes for the wine bottle. She needs a refill. "Don't you think that says more about Barry than it does about your wingman skills?" she asks. "I mean, considering."

Iris bites her lip, momentarily stalled. "Well - no," she decides. "I've done it for plenty of other people, too."

"Which other people?" Caitlin asks skeptically. 

"Uh," Iris says. Caitlin takes another gulp of wine. "Brianna Norton! My college roommate. I hooked her up all the time. And, um…" she trails off uncertainly. "Okay, cut me some slack, I'm only 25. I haven't had _that_ much life experience yet."

"Well," Caitlin says slowly, "I can't say I don't appreciate the sentiment, Iris. But - "

"Nope! No buts." Iris grins at her. It is infectious, as always, and Caitlin finds herself smiling back. "Look, I'm not saying let's turn this into a sitcom or anything, but - we can get proactive! You have feelings for him, and what's standing in the way, besides this other girl?" Iris scrunches up her nose. "I mean, what's Be _lin_ da got that you don't?"

It's uncomfortably close to the question that's been keeping Caitlin up the last few nights. "Well," she starts, but Iris cuts her off with a stern look. "Okay. Nothing."

"Right. So, she sucks." Iris punctuates the sentence with a gulp of wine.

Well, Caitlin can recognize a compliment, even buried in an insult. It makes her feel sort of nice, actually. "So what do you suggest?"

"Well, he's your best friend, right?" Iris asks. "What kind of women does he like?"

 _Alive ones,_ Caitlin thinks, and immediately feels sort of bad about it. "He likes," she says, slowly, determined to take it seriously. For Iris' sake, if not her own. "He likes people who are funny, and kind. And he's been burned a lot, so he doesn't respond well to pushiness."

"Okay, that's good," Iris encourages. "You're funny. Not always intentionally. Which I mean in a nice way."

"Thanks?"

Iris smiles lopsidedly, her expression still playful. "You're also very kind, so there you go, you've got the market cornered already."

"I don't know about that," Caitlin says. "I don't think I'm _kind,_ necessarily."

"Of course you are," Iris protests. "Are you kidding? You help save people's lives every day, Caitlin."

"That doesn't mean I'm kind," Caitlin points out, and seeing Iris' frown, pushes past it quickly. "But I'm not pushy. Well - I am. But only when I'm right about something."

Iris laughs. "See? Funny." 

Caitlin takes a smug sip of wine. That one actually was intentional.

"So okay, let's brainstorm then." Iris reaches over into her purse, pulling out that little reporter notebook she carries everywhere. _Sometimes you have to embrace the cliche,_ she'd told Caitlin once. _When it's useful, that is._ "A plan of attack. Obviously you can't be subtle about it - you will have to just talk to him about it eventually. But that doesn't mean you can't grease the wheel beforehand, so to speak." She gestures Caitlin closer, so she can lean over Iris' shoulder. "Like, I'm just saying - speaking as someone who's been the recipient of that conversation before? It does help when they remind you why you like them in the first place, just like - going into it."

"I don't actually...know why Cisco likes me," Caitlin says, bewildered.

"What? C'mon." Iris rolls her eyes, pointedly writing "kind" and "funny" at the top of the page, outlining them with bold swipes of her pen. "You're his friend. Why does anyone become friends with anyone else? Start there."

"I just," Caitlin says, feeling a bit lost, uncomfortable somehow, and not sure of the reason. "I don't know what to - how to…"

Iris' gaze goes soft. "Hey - I'm the one being pushy right now. We don't - I'm sorry, we don't have to talk about it right now, if you don't want to."

Caitlin takes another drink, trying to steel herself. "No, I want to. I'm just not sure…" she shrugs. "I'm not very good at this sort of thing."

"It's okay." Iris squeezes her arm. "I am."

"Clearly," Caitlin replies breathily. Iris looks startled, and laughs again. 

"Thanks?" She leans over and casually hits Caitlin with a halfway hug, pressing her cheek against Caitlin's shoulder briefly. Caitlin goes a little stiff, on instinct, and Iris pulls away in response, still smiling, with that soft look on her face again. "Okay, we'll take it slow. Maybe this will help - if nothing else, to sort your head out about it."

"Slowly, with wine, is absolutely my preferred method of dealing with things," Caitlin says.

"A woman after my own heart," Iris says admiringly.

 

 

It's not that Caitlin has a low opinion of herself, or that she has any self-esteem issues - well, she has self-esteem issues, of course. But who doesn't? She doesn't think they're anything out of the ordinary, for a woman her age.

But she tries to be as aware of herself as she can, to be honest about her own shortcomings and flaws - how else is she supposed to navigate them? How else do you survive in this world, if you don't know yourself very well? She knows she can be harsh, and cold with people. She knows that she's a bit judgmental, and while she is empathetic, she's not particularly _compassionate_ \- at least not in the way Cisco is, or Barry. Being a hero comes easily to them - they can't help but feel for people in need, and it's important to them in a way that it just isn't, for Caitlin. She doesn't think it's a bad thing, necessarily. Just - they often have different priorities, is all.

She likes helping people. She likes being part of something important, and using her skills to protect others, and doing something substantial to make up for what they did to this city, all the pain the explosion caused, the pain that she's partially responsible for. But she can't say that this is a life that she would've chosen, if she'd been given options. She's not like Ronnie - always so eager to put himself in the fight, always jumping at the chance to be the hero. She can't even remember all the times that he'd done that, even in small ways - the bar fights he was always interrupting, to the point where he had a sort of reputation for it. The little ways he'd put himself out there, a little too much, to play the benevolent, gallant mentor to the younger employees and interns at the lab. He was _hungry_ for it - and in a lot of ways, she thinks that it was inevitable, that Firestorm was his destiny all along, for that reason. It's something she liked about him, but - she's not going to fool herself into thinking that it's something they had in common.

Cisco had been the one to pursue her friendship. They did work together, somewhat closely, but not close enough that their friendship was inevitable - he'd sought her out. Invited her out to lunch, struck up conversation in the break room, paid attention when she'd get onto a tangent about something and seemed to enjoy it enough to ask questions, to spur her on to keep going. He'd been friends with Ronnie too, of course, because he'd worked with him one-on-one a lot more than either of them did with Caitlin. But he'd made it clear, in a number of ways, that he wanted Caitlin's friendship on its own merits, not just because she was the girlfriend tagging along on their bar crawls and video game marathons.

She's not sure why. She's never sure what it is about her, the thing that makes people stick around. Objectively, she thinks this is probably part of her manageable self-esteem issue, and takes pains to remind herself that she is a good person, with good qualities, that deserves to be loved. But subjectively, she doesn't know why Cisco would want to be with someone like her. Why he would even bother, when he could find someone...easier? Less guarded. Less baggage, with fewer sore spots to navigate.

Once, during a low point after Ronnie died, they'd had this big fight - she was so _angry,_ back then, and Cisco's gentle sympathy was so _annoying,_ sometimes. She'd made it a goal to make him mad, just to see it, because she was sick of him never snapping back, when she lashed out, and after some concerted effort, she succeeded. She doesn't remember everything they'd said to each other, but she knows it was ugly, so maybe that's a good thing.

Afterwards, when they'd made up - and it had happened quickly, she'd started crying as soon as he stormed out, berating herself and pacing around her bedroom, wondering _why_ she just had to ruin every good thing, how _ungrateful_ she was, after all the trouble she'd caused him - he'd said to her, "look Cait, you can't make me stop caring about you, okay? And you can't treat me like that anymore. But even if you do - I'm still not going to give up, because I know what you're doing, and I get it. But I'm still not gonna let you do it." 

She knows that's not how it works - you don't earn people. You _choose_ them, flaws included. And anyone who expects her to live up to some imaginary standard in order to deserve their love is not a person Caitlin wants to be loved by. But there's a difference between what she knows and what she feels, and her heart is a stubborn one, slow on the uptake and unconvinced of its own value. It's one of those things she knows about herself. But being aware of it doesn't mean she knows how to quit feeling like that.

Anyway, Cisco feels the same way sometimes, she can tell. That's a thing they would have in common.

 

 

Iris and Caitlin move onto food eventually, tapas at the bar and then gigantic gyros from an all-night cafe a few blocks away. They walk there together, not bothering with any taxis yet, huddled together against the cool evening wind, keeping each other steady against the combined force of high heels and two bottles of zinfandel.

Iris vacillates between manic energy and subdued silence all night; she often does this, with Caitlin. Maybe it's the things they can't talk about, the limits imposed on their friendship by Barry and Wells' secrets, or maybe...maybe Iris just feels comfortable with Caitlin, comfortable enough that she can let her moods free. Caitlin hopes it's the latter.

Their list morphs into a sprawling creature over the course of the evening, half of it serious and half of it silly, little jokes that Iris scrawls in her messy reporter's handwriting. "Excellent fashion sense," is Caitlin's favorite, "will improve Cisco's by osmosis, y/n? Must do research and confirm." There's also an entire section on her hair. Caitlin's contribution.

Iris rips it out of her notebook and tucks it into Caitlin's wallet, before they leave. "A reminder," she tells Caitlin, reaching up and patting her cheek, silly with wine and food and laughter. "To turn that frown upside down when you need it."

The sentiment brings literal tears to Caitlin's eyes. God, but it's nice to have a girlfriend. "Thank you."

"But listen." Iris grows sober, clasping Caitlin's forearm. "Promise me something, okay? Promise me you'll tell him. Soon." She blinks rapidly, gaze turning inward. "He deserves to know. Don't do what Barry did. Please. It's not fair, Caitlin."

It's a struggle, to keep her voice steady. "But isn't it...just as unfair, to tell him now that he's found someone?"

Iris shakes her head. "It's not a fair choice, if he doesn't know that he's making one. And now's the time, before things get serious." She leans in for a hug, squeezing Caitlin tight. "I know it's scary. But you gotta do it, Cait. Please take my word for it."

Caitlin hugs her back, resisting the urge to sink into her, bury her face against Iris' neck and just...rest, for awhile. "Okay. I will."

"Thank you," Iris says, and when she pulls back, she looks relieved.

"I'm sorry I helped him lie to you," Caitlin says, impulsively. Iris starts a little in surprise. Caitlin's said this before, but it feels right to say it again, in this moment. "Barry, I mean." 

"It's okay." Iris shrugs, giving her a tired, but genuine, smile. "We all do what we think is right. And we're all moving forward, too. Bit by bit."

 _From your lips to God's ears,_ Caitlin thinks.

 

 

Caitlin drunk dials her mother when she gets home, which is just embarrassing. They talk for forty-five minutes about Caitlin's diet - which apparently does not contain enough fiber - and then she stays up until three o'clock reading self-help articles on the internet and eating peanut butter straight from the jar. The next day, she sleeps in until noon. Iris texts her once, about a movie they'd talked about, playing that night on HBO. Cisco texts her six times, with varying degrees of urgency, because he's having some kind of breakdown about his laundry.

 _ALL MY CLOTHES ARE GREY,_ is the last one. _HOW DID MY LIFE GET LIKE THIS CAITLIN_

 _Did you separate your colors?_ Caitlin texts back.

 _ur alive!!_ he responds right away, and then: _OFC i separated colors cait i'm not an animal_

_Then why is everything grey?_

_because my life is a mess!!! this is what i'm saaaaaayinggg_

Caitlin snorts, and looks around at her apartment; there's a pile of Cisco's science journals on the floor next to her briefcase that he left here last weekend, and his Farscape DVDs are on the armchair. A sweater, that began its life with Cisco, and now is coming to its end as her nightgown, is crumpled next to her pillow. 

Caitlin loves him, is the thing. She loves him the way she loves herself: wholeheartedly, purposefully, and with her eyes wide open. She made a decision to do that, at some point. And she's making another decision now.

_Why don't you come over? You can use my machine. There must be something wrong with yours._

She bites her thumbnail as she waits for the response, forcing herself to lock the screen so she doesn't go cross-eyed staring at those three blinking little dots. The text tone, when it happens, makes her jump.

_did u dvr snl this week_

Caitlin rolls her eyes. _When do I ever NOT dvr SNL for you?_

 _sweet see u in 20_

Caitlin smiles fondly, then looks down at herself and yelps. Twenty minutes! She hasn't even _showered._

 _Can we make it 45?_ she sends.

 _relax cait u know i don't care about ur hair,_ he sends back immediately. Caitlin throws her phone down in exasperation and books it for the bathroom. 

 

 

She showers in record time, skipping the blow dry and twisting her hair into a wet bun so she can concentrate on clothes. Wearing his sweater would be a little much, she figures. And there is Iris' point, about her fashion sense. She has the list tacked up on the corkboard behind her desk in the bedroom, so it's hard to ignore. 

She's knee deep in the stash of emergency casual sundresses she keeps in the back of her closet when Cisco arrives; Caitlin hears him letting himself in, humming something and clomping around the living room. She freezes and listens for a second, feeling strange and a little scandalous, standing half-naked in her closet and listening to him singing a Beyonce song that she is ninety-eight percent sure is about oral sex. 

"Cait?" he calls after a second. Caitlin gulps and grabs the nearest dress, without looking. "You here?"

"I'm not decent," she calls. 

"I told you I didn't care about your hair!"

Caitlin doesn't dignify that with an answer, hurriedly buttoning and zipping herself up. "You know where the machines are! I'll be out in a second."

Cisco laughs faintly and mumbles something too quiet to hear through the bedroom door, and she hears him shuffle away, towards the bathroom where the washing machine is. After a second, he starts singing again, louder this time. Caitlin smiles to herself and hums along under her breath. 

When she steps out of her bedroom, she can just see him in the bathroom, pulling clothes out of that ratty old laundry bag he uses and tossing them into her washing machine. Caitlin stops at the foot of her rug and watches him for a few moments, her stomach doing somersaults.

"I am sorting," Cisco says, without turning around. "See?"

"Do you need help?"

"Nah." Cisco turns to look at her over his shoulder, and does a double take. "Whoa."

"What?" Caitlin asks, looking down at the dress worriedly. "What's wrong?"

"I've just never seen you wear that before," Cisco says. His eyes widen a bit, and he turns his back quickly. Caitlin frowns and tugs at the skirt, feeling self-conscious. "It looks nice."

"Thank you," Caitlin says, feeling a bit off balance. She frowns again; maybe it's too dressy? It is a bit short, but it's just a red sundress. She should've gone for her usual jeans-and-blouse combo that she wears whenever Cisco comes over. Or maybe - is he thrown off because she's not wearing makeup? She usually does, but. She didn't want to bother with it. "Here - I have some things in the dryer, I'll take them out for you."

"I can do it for you," Cisco says, but steps aside for her anyway, giving her an indulgent smile when she ignores him completely, tugging down one of her hampers from the shelf and opening the dryer door. "At least let me help fold."

"I don't _fold things_ ," Caitlin replies, rolling her eyes. Cisco scrunches up his face in confusion. "I _hang_ them. You hang clothes, you don't fold them."

"Do you," Cisco teases. "Even the towels?"

"These are kitchen towels, so yes," Caitlin says, waving one in his face pointedly. "They hang from the oven handle, so there."

Cisco laughs. "Well, I'll help you hang, then."

"That's acceptable," Caitlin tells him. 

 

 

Caitlin tries to turn on SNL while they work, but Cisco insists an episode hosted by The Rock deserves no less than their full attention, so they queue up a Pandora station on Cisco's cell phone, instead. He also follows her instructions meticulously in regards to hanger placement and arrangement, which is nice, considering how twitchy she is about her clothes. She acknowledges that this is an annoying quality of hers. Most of her fights with Ronnie after they'd moved in together had involved laundry. 

"Man, your closet is huge," Cisco says, leaning against the wall as she finishes hanging up out the last of the pile. "I mean, I knew you were a clotheshorse but I think I saw Jimmy Hoffa's body in there somewhere."

"No, I keep him with my shoes," Caitlin says, and he laughs, gratifyingly.

"My mistake. I was distracted by your collection of thirty _completely identical_ pencil skirts."

"Excuse me - !" Caitlin whips her head around, cutting off her own sentence when she catches Cisco's grin. "You know what? No."

"You're too easy."

"And you're _mean_ ," Caitlin says, stepping delicately out of the closet and sliding it shut pointedly. 

Cisco shrugs easily, wandering around her bedroom, surveying it with casual interest. "That's what they tell me. Hey, what's this?"

Caitlin flushes hot and cold, her hands clenching at her sides. "Oh, it's - nothing. Something Iris and I were talking about last night."

Cisco looks over and immediately steps back from the corkboard, seeming to sense her discomfort. "Ah, girl stuff," he declares. Caitlin lets out a breath of relief. "So, I believe I was promised SNL. I was thinking we could order from Rico's, since they deliver now - wait, you're not hungover, are you? Because Rico's wouldn't be a good idea if you're recently dehydrated."

"No, I'm fine," Caitlin says. "Rico's sounds good, but, um. I'd like to...sort of, um, discuss something with you first. If that's okay."

"Sure, what's up?" 

"Let's go sit down," Caitlin suggests. She's not sure she can get through this while he's leaning against the foot of her bed. And wearing one of those sweaters again, no less. "And it's nothing bad, so get that look off your face."

"I don't have a look," Cisco says, trailing her to the living room. He definitely has a look. "Is this about Ronnie? Did Joe find out where Eiling might have taken him and Martin?"

"What? No." Caitlin turns on her heel. "Did you?"

"No," Cisco says slowly.

"It's not about him," Caitlin says, disconcerted. She grabs his arm and pulls him over to the couch, shaking her head. "Ronnie's not the only thing in my life, you know."

"No, I know that, but you have this...Ronnie vibe," Cisco says. Caitlin narrows her eyes at him. "It's like, you get all nervous and tense and you go back and forth between being really, really friendly and really, really _not_. I only ever see you like that when he's involved, somehow."

Well, she's not going to get a better opener than that one. "That's how I act when my feelings are involved."

Cisco nods, turning towards her on the couch. He looks concerned, and a little nervous. "Okay, so if it's not Ronnie, then what..."

"Specifically," Caitlin says, "when romantic feelings are involved. That's how I act when I'm, when it's - " she takes a deep breath. "That's how I act when I'm in love."

Cisco nods silently, his expression going a little leery. 

"I just want to be very clear about this."

"Clear about _what?_ "

"About me. About - about where I am right now. And...where I want to be." Caitlin looks straight at him, watching his face go blank with shock, and maybe something else, some other emotion that she can't identify. She thinks about the night she was kidnapped, what it'd felt like to sit in that chair and wonder if that warehouse would be the last room she'd ever see, if that bomb was how she would die. She remembers looking up and seeing Cisco, too, and thinking about how silly it was to have been that scared. Of course she wasn't going to die. How could she die, when Cisco was still alive? The universe simply wouldn't allow it. 

"What are you saying," Cisco says. He sounds wary, and Caitlin reaches over and takes his hand. It twitches beneath her touch. "Cait?"

"I know that I'm kind of a difficult person," Caitlin starts, and squeezes his fingers to forestall his protest. "No, just let me say this, okay? I know I'm hard to get along with. I have these erratic mood swings sometimes, and...I'm not very good with intimacy. It took me and Ronnie a long time to get past all that and figure out something that worked for us, and it was mostly because of me, because of my - my personality. I'm not ashamed of it, it's just...the truth, of who I am."

"I don't think you're hard to get along with," Cisco says. 

Caitlin smiles, the simple, kind response bringing tears to her eyes. "I know," she says shakily. "I know."

"Cait, listen," Cisco says, "if you have feelings for someone, that's - that's okay! That's great, actually. You don't have to feel guilty about Ronnie, alright? He didn't sacrifice himself so that you would _wait_ for him. It's...it's okay for you to move on. You know he would want you to."

Caitlin gives a watery laugh. "I don't feel guilty."

"Well," Cisco says, "good."

"I feel better than I have in a long time, actually," Caitlin tells him. She can tell he doesn't get it yet, not completely. _Place a bet, Caitlin,_ she thinks. _Do it now._ "It's because of you. It _is_ you, Cisco. You're the one."

Cisco blinks at her. "Uh," he says.

Caitlin waits for a few nervous moments, then words start bubbling over, from the part of her heart that is pounding anxiously against her ribcage. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable of course, and you're not obligated to do anything and I know you're seeing someone and I am incredibly happy for you and I don't mean to get in the way but Iris and I have been talking about this and I really think she's right that it isn't fair for me to keep it a secret and brood about it like Barry did and I'm really sorry - "

"Oh," Cisco interrupts, grabbing her shoulder, "my God. Stop. What? Stop."

"Sorry."

"You're kidding, right? This is a joke?" Cisco says, kind of harshly. Caitlin flinches. "You're - no. You're not kidding. You're not kidding and you're serious."

"I'm _sorry,_ " Caitlin says desperately. Her hands are shaking. "You know what - this was a mistake. I shouldn't have said anything - "

"Stop! Would you just - " Cisco grabs her shoulder again, glaring at her until she sits back down. "Just give me a second to process, okay?"

"Sorry."

"And stop _apologizing,_ " he says, and Caitlin snaps her mouth shut quickly. He shoots her a look, like he knows what she almost said, on reflex. "I'm. You can't just. _Me_? Really?"

Caitlin nods. 

"How long?"

She shrugs.

"Cait."

"A few months." Caitlin sighs. "Maybe longer, I don't know. It's hard to tell sometimes, for me. How I feel. Like, it's hard for me to recognize what it is."

"This is what you've been so torn up about," he murmurs. He sounds incredulous, and his face is turned away, so Caitlin can't tell what he's thinking, or which way this is going. She clenches her hands into fists in her lap, to keep from reaching out. "God, Caitlin."

"I just," Caitlin says, hearing her voice break. She pauses for a second, swallowing a few times, and tries again. "I didn't want to keep it from you for any longer. It's alright if you don't return them. I'll survive it, I just - it's not that I want anything from you in particular, it's just...I wanted you to know."

"I don't think this is how it's supposed to happen," Cisco says, his voice oddly distant. Caitlin stares at the side of his face, frozen in anticipation, indecision. Fear, maybe. "I don't think...I'm never the one. It's not supposed to be me."

Caitlin frowns. "What?"

Cisco stands up suddenly, moving to the window, where the sun is just beginning to set. Caitlin stares at his back, heart in her throat. When he turns around, he looks agitated, his hands moving restlessly. "I've been having dreams."

Caitlin stares some more. "Sorry?"

"Dreams. And like - flashbacks, or something. I don't know. But I can...see things." He runs his hands through his hair restlessly. "I don't know what they are, I think - I feel like I'm losing my mind, sometimes. I see things, all kinds of things, that haven't happened, that contradict each other...I don't know what they are."

Caitlin feels her pulse start to race. "What kind of things?"

" _All_ kinds of things," Cisco says, sounding almost manic. "Barry, and...Wells. You and me, and Iris and Joe and Felicity and - everyone, and other people too, that I don't know but somehow - I also do, you know? I do know them. Sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not, but - it's like I'm seeing possibilities, or something. Like there's a logic to it, somehow."

"Cisco," Caitlin says slowly, "maybe you should come sit down."

"You think I'm crazy," Cisco says, and laughs bitterly. "It's okay, you're not alone in that."

"I do _not_ think you're crazy, I just think you should come sit back down," Caitlin says firmly. Cisco takes a deep breath and obeys, crossing back over and sinking down on the coffee table across from her. "Tell me."

"Wells isn't Wells," Cisco says first, and Caitlin feels that sentence hit like a wrecking ball. "We both know it already."

"Yes," Caitlin agrees quietly.

"Barry's powers aren't done growing," Cisco continues, in that same sure, intense tone of voice, "and Cait, you - I see you - "

His voice falters, and Caitlin's breath catches along with it. "What?"

"Bad things happen to you," he says heavily, like he's tearing the words out of himself. "Sometimes we fix it and sometimes we don't. Ronnie saves you a lot, and Barry does too, not as much, but still a lot, and - you know sometimes, we don't even know each other! Sometimes I see - look, it doesn't matter. But - it's _never me_ , Caitlin. It's not supposed to be _me._ "

Caitlin registers absently that she's crying, but it feels rather unimportant at the moment. "But it is you. Right here, right now, it's you."

"But it's _wrong_ ," Cisco says, and if she weren't already crying, she would be now, at the look on his face as he says that, like he doesn't want it to be true. Like when he told them he was quitting, that he didn't deserve to be there, as if he truly didn't know that he was the only one who really _did,_ the one who rose above them all, in so many ways. "People don't - look, I love you, okay? I love you with all my heart, you gotta know that. I _love you_. But you're not supposed to love me back. That's not how it works."

"Shut up," Caitlin spits, forcing them out through a sob, "just - shut up. You're talking nonsense."

Cisco reaches for her, agonized, and she pushes him away, shaking her head, trying to get ahold of herself. He grimaces and pulls his hands back, clasping them tightly between his knees. 

"Just don't do it like this," Caitlin pleads, wiping furiously at her face, "don't use this as a way to tell me no. There are so many reasons to tell me no, Cisco, but none of them are because you don't deserve me. And if that's what you really think, then just - leave. Get out right now and leave me alone."

"That's not it," he says, crying himself. Caitlin looks at his face and just _aches_ with the desire to reach out. "It's not - it's bigger than that. I think - this is wrong. I don't think things are supposed to go like this. Iris - she's not supposed to know yet, and Ronnie wasn't supposed to..." he trails off helplessly, looking miserable as she sobs again, unable to keep it in. 

"You think this isn't real?" Caitlin asks furiously. She reaches out and pinches his arm, making him jump in surprise. "Did you feel that? Here." She does it to herself, a little more viciously, watching in satisfaction as a red mark blooms on her skin. "Is that enough? You want to jump out the window and see what happens?"

"Stop," he says, grabbing her hand, "don't _hurt_ yourself, _no te puedo_ \- "

"No, listen to me," Caitlin says, "listen. I don't care how things are supposed to go. I was supposed to be a doctor! I was supposed to marry Ronnie and move out of the city and the particle accelerator was supposed to _save the world_ and it did the exact _opposite_! Life isn't a damn novel, Cisco, things happen and plans change."

"You're not understanding me," Cisco says weakly, "it's not just - I don't think we were _meant_ to be here, I think something _happened_. To _change things_."

"And if they did?" she demands. "What would that mean? We should try to change them back? What would that accomplish? Am I supposed to magically bring Ronnie back? Erase Iris' memory? _Force myself_ to stop loving you?"

Cisco just shakes his head, his face creased with distress.

"You think this doesn't scare me? You think I don't believe you, or - "

"I don't want to hurt you," Cisco interrupts. "I don't want to get hurt, either. _Por dios_ Caitlin, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to not make things _worse_ , okay?"

"What would make this worse would be if you made me do this alone," Caitlin tells him, the honestly scraping painfully at her throat. Cisco goes very still, his head dipping down towards the ground, shoulders shuddering. "Please. Please don't make me do this alone. Without you. I don't want that. I couldn't handle that, not when I've finally figured it out - "

Cisco cuts her off with a kiss, a desperate, haphazard thing. Caitlin melts into it, reaching out and scrabbling at his shirt with her fingers, whimpers melting out of her like leaves shaken from a tree. His hands are on her face and it's so strange, like - like they're vibrating, almost. She can feel it all the way down to her toes.

He mutters something in Spanish as they break apart, too garbled for her to understand. Caitlin feels like she might fall off the couch, maybe, so she grabs his wrists, his hands still anchored against her face, and tries to breathe evenly, her heart beating so fast it almost hurts. 

This can't possibly be something the universe wants to _prevent,_ Caitlin thinks wildly. It just _can't be._

"I would never want to leave you," Cisco says. His forehead comes to rest against hers, the words mixing between them. "You have to know that."

"So don't," Caitlin says softly. "Don't do it."

Her vision blurs, and she feels him nod more than sees it. His hands are shaking strangely again, and Caitlin grips him a bit tighter. "Okay." 

"Okay."

He kisses her again, on the bridge of her nose, so tenderly that she chokes on another sob. It's just been so long. So, so long, since someone has touched her like this.

"I don't know what's happening to me," Cisco confesses quietly. Caitlin pitches forward into his embrace, burying her face against his shoulder. Cisco holds her tightly, still shivering so oddly. Caitlin tucks in a little closer. She kind of likes it. 

"So let me help," she mumbles, knowing he can hear her. "Let this happen."

Cisco nods shakily; she can feel the movement against the top of her head. 

"We'll figure it out," she tells him. "None of it is real, Cisco. This is what's real now."

"You and me," Cisco says hoarsely. 

"Yes," Caitlin says, sure in her conviction. Cisco shudders deeply, and grasps her tighter. 

They don't speak again.


End file.
